The Fascinating History of the World's Obsession With Butts

There's hardly a female erogenous zone that hasn't been celebrated in art and culture—the bum included. The most fascinating numbers about one of history's prized assets.

1: The approximate century the original nude statue Venus Callipyge was created. Translated from Greek, the name means "Venus of the beautiful [kalli-] buttocks [pyge]."

2002: The year Duke University scientists discovered the gene mutation that results in enlarged posteriors on some sheep; they named the animals callipyge sheep.

570: The estimated number of works by Peter Paul Rubens. The Flemish Baroque artist had an affinity for painting full-figured women; his name gave rise to the term "Rubenesque."

1870s: The decade bustles, steel hoops that give volume to the butt and make the waist appear smaller, became fashionable with women throughout Europe.

1998: The year the Ivory Coast prohibited public performance of mapouka, a traditional tribal dance that has been cited as the inspiration for the bump and twerking.**

2013: The year "twerking," defined as "a dance or dance move involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance," was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.

2010: The year Jean-Léon Gérôme's The Snake Charmer, a painting depicting a naked butt, was shown in Paris, the first time it had been in France since 1880.

16,000: The number of women in a 2007 study that found that those with a greater hip-to-waist ratio had higher IQs than less-curvy women. Their children also scored higher.

86.1: The percentage increase in butt augmentations from 2013 to 2014 according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery; butt lifts increased 14.8 percent.

8.1 million: The approximate number of followers of Jen Selter's Instagram feed, which features workout pictures and "belfies" (butt selfies).

19.6 million: The number of views of Nicki Minaj's "Anaconda" video in its first 24 hours online.

$79: The price per person for the Metropolitan Museum of Butts tour offered by the group Museum Hack. The tour "looks at the...Met's collection through the lens of butts."

45.5 The degree angle of a woman's spine—which lifts her butt and makes it appear larger—preferred by male subjects in a 2015 study published in Evolution and Human Behavior. Researchers noted, "Men who think they like big bottoms may actually be more into spines."